WASHINGTON -- A team of South Korean scientists said they cloned a human cell, renewing the questions of what exactly a clone is and when human life begins, experts said Thursday.
Such issues will have to be addressed urgently, because laboratories have shown they are capable of the technology, said Neal First of the University of Wisconsin. First has created cross-species clones of several animals using eggs from cows.
"I think at this moment Congress has to decide on the issue of cloning," he said.
First said he does not doubt the South Korean team did clone a human cell -- which they let divide twice before stopping the process. Headed by Dr. Kim Seung-bo, the researchers at Seoul's Kyunghee University Hospital have declined to give details about their experiment.
No one who has succeeded in cloning cells or even animals say they want to clone human beings. The idea is to use cloning technology to grow human "stem cells" that can differentiate into various kinds of tissue for use in treating diseases.
Other researchers are using cloning technology to help infertile women, by using younger women's egg cells to boost aging or damaged ones.
Lori Andrews, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of law who has become a specialist in the ethics of cloning, said this experiment, combined with recent news that Japanese scientists cloned eight calves, shows it is no longer impossible to clone human beings.
"Between the Japanese cows and the South Korean report, this suggests that efficacy issues no longer apply, [and] it will readily move to the next stage of being able to implant," she said. "And any IVF clinic will be able to do that. I think someone is just going to do it."
The Korean researchers said they took an adult cell from a woman in her 30s, fused the nucleus into another egg cell, and started the egg growing as if it had been fertilized. They stopped the process once the egg had divided into four cells.
"The fact that they went to four cells and they stopped it doesn't tell us how far it would go," First said. "But I think it says the technology that they used is probably capable of doing something."
Opponents of cloning said they would press for immediate legislation to ban such experiments. "We are determined to mount a global effort in opposition to human cloning," said Jeremy Rifkin, a writer on biotechnology issues.
"This report should send shock waves down the spines of all Americans who have thus far remained blind to the consequences of man's insistence that he is God," Judie Brown, president of the anti-abortion American Life League, agreed in a separate statement.
"It is now clear that Congress is obliged to step forward and pronounce a total ban on any scientific experiments that jeopardize the integrity of the human being, whose life begins at fertilization."
The Kyunghee researchers said they would not press ahead until South Korea's legislators decided on legal and ethical questions surrounding the cloning of humans.
Top US experts in cloning asked Congress earlier this month to allow such trials to go ahead. American laws currently forbid federal funding of experiments involving human embryos. The scientists, including First, say government funding is vital because of the promise stem cells hold for treating diseases ranging from diabetes to Parkinson's.
And experiments continue. First said his team is working to make cross-species clones of monkeys, mice, and other animals using cow eggs.
Copyright© 1998 Reuters Limited.
